ARTICLES ABOUT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BY DATE - PAGE 2

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's telecom regulator authority has blocked over 2 million SIM cards across the country under a campaign launched by the government for authentication of details of mobile phone subscribers. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) earlier this month gave 91 days to verify 103 million unverified SIMs through the Biometric Verification System (BVS), as part of security measures following the December Peshawar school massacre that killed 150 people, the Dawn reported.

NEW DELHI: The Cabinet today approved the reconstitution of the empowered committee on setting up of Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication (FAB) projects, with NITI Aayog member V K Saraswat as the Chairman. The committee was set up in 2011 to identify technology and investors and to recommend incentives to be provided for setting up two FAB facilities. The panel had submitted its recommendations to the government, based on which two projects were cleared. Besides Saraswat, other members of the reconstituted committee include K Radhakrishnan, former Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation; Secretary, Department of Expenditure; Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion; M J Zarabi, former CMD, Semiconductor Complex Ltd; Narendra Krishna Karmarkar, Visiting Professor, IIT-Bombay and Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology as Member Convener.

MUMBAI: The Centre has decided to turn to technology to analyse more comprehensively the comments on the MyGov website along with social media and news sites in an attempt to enhance engagement with citizens. MyGov, the citizen engagement internet platform launched by the Narendra Modi government in July last year, has more than seven lakh users and gets about 20,000 more every week, according to the government. So far, the analysis has been done manually or with elementary tools, but as the website scales up, the government wants to put in place an analytics platform.

NEW DELHI: After nearly three years of probe, CBI has not been able to calculate the total loss incurred to the exchequer by over 350 high speed broadband lines allegedly set up by BSNL officials at the residence of former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran to allegedly benefit Sun TV network owned by his brother Kalanithi. Nearly Rs 1.2 crore was the installation fee which was the alleged loss to the exchequer because it was never paid, a senior official said adding that there was no estimate of recurring and call charges for the three years period 2004-07 during which the alleged exchanged operated, sources said.

India and Vietnam concluded their successful round of Defence Dialogue in Delhi on Friday, the first since the Modi government came to power. The Prime Minister of Vietnam had visited India only three months back. ET met with Senior Lieutebant General Nguyen Chi Vinh , Vice Minister of Defence, Vietnam, to discuss contours of the dialogue. What is the purpose of this year's India-Vietnam Defence Dialogue? The Vietnam-India dialogue began in 2007. It is organized on rotational basis either in Vietnam or India with the purpose of strengthening defence cooperation.

HYDERABAD: World Congress on Information Technology , a biennial event, will be held in Hyderabad in 2018, the domestic industry body Nasscom said today. Nasscom President R Chandrasekhar said the event will bring together business delegations from amongst the 80 countries. The Congress will also provide the state an ideal audience including global decision makers who would be participating at the event and making relevant trade and investment decisions, he said.

MUMBAI: State Bank of India , the country's largest lender and one of the biggest spenders on information technology, has plans to be on a par with its private sector rivals in terms of technology, as it looks to battle perceptions that it is a tech laggard. SBI, which traces its ancestry back to 1806 and the Imperial Bank of India , has had a tougher technology journey than its private sector rivals ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank , which had neither the legacy systems nor the scale to contend with when they launched just over 20 years ago. But after a game of catch-up, SBI is ready to take on its private sector rivals on the technology turf.

NEW DELHI: What does Flipkart, an ecommerce major, have in common with Iambesharam-.com, Thatspersonal.com and Ohmysecrets.com? Nothing, it would seem. But all four are on a list of websites the government of Telengana wants blocked for "objectionable content". A senior government official told ET the state government feels some websites need to be blocked to avert crimes against women as "there is a strong concern that viewing porn sites is leading to crime against women. " "The state government has sought our help in directing various internet service providers (ISPs)

BEIJING: China today said it will allow foreign investors to fully own e-commerce companies in a pilot scheme in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ). The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ( MIIT ) in a brief statement said that telecommunication authorities in Shanghai would take charge of the pilot scheme and regulate and supervise foreign investors. The ministry did not reveal any further details. The entry of foreign investors to Shanghai FTZ is expected to trigger a gradual opening to overseas capital in China's lucrative e-commerce business currently dominated by homegrown giants including Alibaba , JD.com and others.

VADODARA: The bilateral trade between India and Vietnam is likely to touch $20 billion by 2020, country's ambassador to India Ton Sinh Thanh has said. "The two-way trade between Vietnam and India is expected to reach $8 billion this year and could rise to $10 billion in 2015 and $20 billion by 2020," Thanh, who was in the city to meet members of the Exim Club Association of Exporters and Importers, told reporters here yesterday. Vietnam is currently India's tenth largest trade partner.